The real stories from inside the F1 paddock

A little perspective…

Formula 1 is going back to the United States after five years away and while the F1 circus is keen to blow its own trumpet, it must not be forgotten that the F1 will be something of a sideshow for American race fans next weekend. The Grand Prix in Austin starts at 13.00 Central Times, which is 14.00 on the East Coast. The final round of the NASCAR Sprint Cup – the Ford EcoBoost 400 – is taking place that day at the Miami Homestead Speedway and it is due to kick off at 15.00 Eastern Time, which means that the F1 race will be halfway through when the stock cars go into action. F1 might have a showdown going on between Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso, but US fans will be caring more about the No. 2 Penske Dodge, driven by Brad Keselowski, which is up against five-time Sprint Cup Champion Jimmie Johnson in the No 48 Hendrick Chevrolet.

Just to put this into some kind of perspective, Speed TV is planning no less than 24 hours of coverage of the NASCAR finale between Thursday and Sunday night.

Glad someone else noticed that it’s the NASCAR final – I spotted this as soon as the date was announced. You also have the NFL games for “local teams ” Houston and Dallas – still I think Austin is the best chance F1 has had in the USA

As an American F-1 fan, NASCAR is like comparing Paul Bocuse dining with McDonalds… the same people will not generally be wathcing both.

NASCAR makes big$$$ in the USA and I propose that Bernie E’s F-1 Model is only suited to take big $$$ from the USA!

With F-1 not making any attempt to garner national exposure – Good Morning America, Oprah, or any other day time / ESPN / Speed TV shows prior to the race.. it’s never going to pull in the big $$ the USA can spit out.

Lewis Hamilton could be a huge draw … Black, good looking, and has a famous GF .. only if F-1 would put him to good use… The comercials with Tony Stewart are a good start.. he needs to sit out side a Wall Mart with his car and do donuts and sign autographs and be on Oprah …. Vettel on Letterman is not enough!

All that said, Watkins Glen used to attract 100,000 fans each day back in the 1970’s… Indy had over 200,000 fans… so where else is F-1 drawing those kind of live audiences??? F-1 greed is to blame NOT the USA.

Tom, anyone would think that having a provider like the BBC, effectively the flagship ‘standard’ for coverage, F1 would have virtually given them the rights for free in the UK to continue to build-up the brand. Oh no. The owners of said brand are too greedy. Don’t ask for logic or common sense when it comes to F1 and its marketing.

I doubt many NASCAR fans will turn off an F1 race to watch Keselowski. The NASCAR fans won’t watch F1 to begin with. And there are not as many people watching NASCAR these days. Texas earned a 2.5 U.S. rating and 3.943 million viewers on ESPN — down 14% in ratings and 17% in viewership from last year. All of the Chase races are down in viewership. F1 can only hope for such success – F1 on Fox (US) in 2011 was consistently below the 1.0 mark in ratings, showing a .7 after the British and European Grands Prix. F1 pulled a .8 after this year’s British GP on Fox.

Most F1 fans I know in the U.S. couldn’t care less about NASCAR, and vice versa. The Speed Channel is a joke to us because it’s become the NASCAR channel — more than a few of us are happy to see F1 coverage go to the same network that does such an excellent job covering the Tour de France. I’ve always thought that Bernie, for all of his brilliance, has never understood the U.S. F1 fan. I saw his hot air about several GPs in the U.S. at another website, and I’d be very happy to see more than one here, and while I do think there’s a bigger market for F1 here than anyone currently associated with the sport believes, I admit that more than two is a stretch. But Korea? India? I suspect that they got races before the U.S. because their governments paid Bernie’s ransom demands, which will never happen here. Austin should be a fitting place for F1 to bury roots. Just please stop treating us like a bunch of NASCAR yahoos and, with time, I’m sure the relationship will be fine — and, not since the Glen, long-lasting.

And thank you from Austin. You’re quite right. I was working in the media center for the race and can report there was tremendous excitement around the event. Once completed, lots of “positiveness” and comments like “great circuit” and “very well done.” Teams, media and attendees all seem to be looking forward to next year. We may have a winner here.

Only the last 50 laps of the NASCAR race really count so I won’t miss any F1 action. SPEED TV already has too much NASCAR coverage. So much it teeters on boring. I wish they would have put 25% of the effort into post-race F1 coverage over the years.

you are rigth dear Joe, but u forget us, the thousand of mexican fans just 2 hours fligth from Mexico Capital or bout the same time driving from border citys, ill bet you that its going to be huge mexican crowd, the tickets are sold out.

Watch and see how many of those sold out seats are empty on race day! Poeple who bought seats hoping to scalp them. Happend at Indy, will happen at Austin. Making next year the tel tale when folks rebuy. If they lost a bundle this year seats will be easy to come by next year! They key number is seats sold vs ocupied on race day.

Yes, NASCAR is huge here in the states. And will get the majority of the attention. However, I know a lot of F1 fans and a lot of NASCAR fans. But not one of them likes both. So the fans of either will not be swayed by the other. Media is another story. They go wherever the money is, there is no passion in their decision making process.

Good to see Speed TV getting behind NASCAR so aggressively. I wonder if some of that vigor has anything to do with losing the bidding for next year’s F1 telecast to NBC/Universal (Speed is a News Corp. network). Which is sad, indeed, since David Hobbs, Steve Matchett and Bob Varsha were truly a wonderful broadcasting team. Some hope that they might move to NBC, but I don’t think I’m that lucky. Brazil is likely the last broadcast for the trio.

Not so much “just another” Fox Sports Channel, but rather a national one… in contrast to the many extant ones which are all city-centric or regional… FOX is aiming to use its re-purposed and to-be-renamed SPEED as its sports flagship to compete with ESPN… the advantage in re-purposing SPEED is that it is already carried by most cable systems, and generally in HD, which means one major obstacle (instant presence in many millions of homes) is overcome much faster/easier/cheaper than would be the case if they started a new ESPN-like channel from scratch…

Lack of cable spectrum is one of two factors that interfered with NBC’s effort to do the same kind of thing… the other factor being that NBC changed hands during the channel’s early days and the new ownership didn’t seem to give a damn about it. Sadly, that same NBC national sports channel which never got near to being a viable ESPN competitor is where F1 is going… while it’s in many homes, it’s one of those 200 obscure channels that most people don’t even know they have. Supposedly, NBC has decided to get more serious about its own challenge to ESPN, but I’ll believe it when I see it…

All I know for sure is that next year will mean F1 in SD instead of HD for me…

However, I’m sure Bernie got NBC to pony up a few more bucks than FOX was wiling to give him… so Bernie makes more and in return F1’s profile on American TV gets worse… typical…

Hard to tilt against the NASCAR windmill this weekend, BUT………between Friday and Tuesday SPEED is providing 17 hours of F1 related coverage including all practice sessions qualifying and race coverage live, and taped replay of qualifying Sunday morning and a taped replay of the race Sunday and Tuesday nights.

SPEED normally shows P2, Q, and the race. (They also stream P1 and P3 on their site without commentary.) They normally show replays of the race, generally on Tuesday night. The Sunday night replay on SPEED has been for the 4 races broadcast by FOX.

The only real diff here is airing all 3 P sessions with commentary instead of P2 only, and the replay of Q.

Once Fox pulled out for next year, they cancelled plans to have the broadcast crew do the job from Austin this year instead of Charlotte… so they visit Austin ahead of time, then leave in time to do the P, Q, and race coverage from the studio in Charlotte.

True; my second paragraph covers that. I would personally watch both, though the Nascar race would be purely to see who takes the title. Having tested and raced stock cars on a few occasions, I do appreciate the craft.

That said, even the most diehard Nascar fans I know usually catch the start and the finish, and find other activities to take up the processional middle part of the race. The plural of anecdote is not data, but I’m sure more fans will tune out due to Vettel running away with the race than due to any Nascar conflict.

Still though, whoeever writes the F1 calender probably should realise that going into a relatively new country (out of the loop for 5 years), on the same day and time as a bigger race is pretty stupid.

It would be like going to Australia on the weekend of Bathurst…. or Melbourne the weekend footy starts up. (which it does about the same time and is incredibly stupid).

Sadly, F1’s return would have a tough time up against bowling in the USA, let alone the Sprint Cup finale. Given the scheduling conflict with NASCAR on what could be one of the sport’s biggest days in years, it appears that F1 organizers remain aloof, and out of touch with one of its largest potential markets. Whether this comes down to arrogance or ignorance is debatable.

I think you’ll find that most American F1 fans will not care at all about the Nascar race, and that most Nascar fans think that Formula One is a men’s hair product.

The few that do care about both will be happy to miss the first half of the Nascar race, as usually the first three quarters of an oval race are somewhat of a procession, especially on a flat track like Homestead. If it was possible to time it perfectly, I bet most would tune in for the last 15 laps if they could.

On the plus side Speed is finally showing all three practice sessions versus only the one (FP2) that we usually get. So while Speed may be planning 24 hours of NASCAR coverage, F1 fans in the US are still coming out ahead. I’m not sure that 24 hour number is any different than any other NASCAR race weekend as far as the amount of coverage from Speed. All I know is that its way too much NASCAR.

It seems that Speed are also in F1, covering all three practice sessions, qualy and the race, with in car cameras at all sessions. http://formula-one.speedtv.com/article/f1-returns-to-us-this-week-on-speed/
I doubt it adds up to 24hours though even including their documentary about CotA being built.
Still it’s a bit like American football being played in the UK, I think it happens, but it’s barely on tv and it’s only firm fans that watch it.

The one NFL regular season game played in London has been such a success that NFL want to make it two each year, it is reported. But I think that’s because the stadium is a sell-out, rather than the TV coverage.

too true; in Canada, our local sports channels (TSN & TSN2) that usually broadcasts the F1 race has full pre-race, race and post-race coverage of the EcoBoost 400 on ‘TSN’ and the CFL (Canadian Football League) west-coast final on TSN2, meaning the only F1 we’ll get is the race at 7pm that evening, several hours after the event!

Seriously? I’m surprised no Canadian F1 fans have gone postal on TSN. A five-minute pre race show is only outdone by their lightning-fast cut to sports news as the interviewer says “now for a word in your own languages”.

It looks like it’s only on at 11.30pm here in Toronto which kind of shows its standing here. And it’s certainly true that we only pick up broadcast from the F1 logo swooping in 5 minutes before the start and drop coverage immediately after the podium interview. And we’ve had a Canadian GP for how long…? A little perspective, indeed, Joe!

BTW, I don’t think TSN can lose rights to NBC because that’s a US network, not Canadian…

And the crazy thing is that our protective CRTC has cut our ability to watch Speed’s great coverage of F1 in Canada as the race is (supposed to be) covered on a Canadian network. They used to limit ALL Speed coverage – even practice which was NOT covered by Canadian TV – until I threatened legal action on behalf of a large contingent of F1 fans. Not sure what I can do now…

There is usually very little overlap between NASCAR fans and Formula One fans (myself being excepted, although I am not what one would call a passionate NASCAR fan. I watch it when there is no other racing to be had. It can sometimes be engaging). BE would be daft to think that he would be able to draw NASCAR fans away to watch F-1. Fortunately, there are many F-1 fans who can’t wait to watch the F-1 race and there are enough people in the US that, while viewership won’t be spectacular, but it should be above normal (that’s not saying a lot). SPEED TV is going to the dumper after this month as they are converting to an “all sports’ format. Already, Ultimate Fighting is creeping into their programming. They already show much less racing than they have previously (WTCC, BTCC, DTM, WEC), and fill their airtime during the winter with cheap to produce “reality television”, which is the bane of broadcasting. I think the reason they devote much more time to NASCAR programing is that it is more accessible, since NASCAR rarely leaves the US. This is probably why BE did the deal with NBC television, knowing that FOX would marginalize F-1 even further down in it’s priorities. It’s funny that some folk posting on your comments seem to think that SKY (owned by FOX) is going to take over F-1. I don’t think that’s going to happen, otherwise they would not tried to low ball the F-1 deal. I am looking forward to seeing what the new NBC broadcast package will look like. While our commentators at SPEED do a great job, they convey much less excitement than what I’ve seen of British coverage. Perhaps that is due to the fact that they no longer broadcast at the venue; SPEED is to cheap to send them to the races, so they call them from the studio in Charlotte, NC, having one correspondent on the grid. I do like Steve Matchet’s technical insight, and David Hobb’s stories of days gone by. They do a good job of not trying to introduce newbies to F-1 every week, which I hope NBC doesn’t fall into. Bernie must be ringing his hands with glee given the turmoil that is happening in IndyCar.

The NBC coverage will be sad in comparison to SKY and BBC.
I get Sky Sports (low definition) in Korea. It’s so bad I don’t watch the races live and just get the British SKY or BBC broadcasts and watch them later. I prefer SKY. Which broadcast is preferred by most?

I’ll be interested in your opinion of the relative costs you incur in Austin as compared to your costs of other F1 locations you visit. Maybe not the same as the average fan, but it might be a good info for your other readers as well.

I was all set to spend a week in Austin this year until I started searching out pricing on everything form hotels to race tickets and airfare. And I looked 6 months ago. They were appalling!

The switch to Comcast will be a benefit for F1. The worst part of doing the 2 PM (GMT-5) start is that that will be 80 minutes before the NASCAR championship (start set for 3:20 PM GMT-5) so the race should end before the first 40 laps are done in the Sprint Cup final.

Mike Joy and Darrell Waltrip, which Speed has assigned to international events (in 2011, they called V8 Supercar’s Bathurst and Gold Coast races trackside) would have wanted to be at the F1 race. In fact, one controversy over US motorsport is their style. If they could sit in a tower on top of the 40m climb in Turn 1 at Austin, they would do that and call the race from the hill since they love to watch as much of the action from the tower, not be monitor-relegated.

Next year with NBC, the race will be on FTA television, not subscription television, as the FIA’s deal with Comcast demands that four races be on FTA television (not NBC Sports Network). The races will likely be Austin, Montreal, Sao Paulo (noon start), and a fourth race could be live or delayed coverage.

The other problem? The motorsport media in the US is obsessed with the NASCAR brawl last week. Could another brawl in F1 be big?

NBC and F1 *must* follow MLB, ESPN, and MLS by having a subscription service to watch races online. No cable or satellite needed.

Yea, the quality of MLS is like the 2nd division in England with maybe a few games at the level of the Championship when lightning strikes twice but that’s not the point. MLS played the long game by cultivating a young fan base that became the players and season ticket holders of today. They did so by not acting like a bunch of crotchety old white collar criminals and embraced the future. Significantly, MLS *still* exists today unlike a litany of ex-F1 tracks in this country. Apparently third time was a charm for a pro soccer league in the US so let’s hope the 10th(?) track is a charm for F1 because I love the sport.

Also, I live in Austin so if you or any other journos need a tour or a recommendation for a restaurant, bar, or anything else feel free to email me for my phone number. Since press conferences begin tomorrow I doubt there’s much free time during the remainder of the weekend for you guys. This city is great so try and get around a few spots.

The NASCAR coverage we get here is just brilliant. They don’t regurgitate the same stuff over and over which is brilliant. Access to the drivers/crews is unsurpassed and makes F1 look like a bunch of grumpy old men.

One interesting note here: In the US, on the whole, a NASCAR fan is not really all that likely to watch anything other than a NASCAR race, These days, it’s a pretty different demographic, as far as fans go. F1 will however attract fans of ALMS, Grand Am, and of course IndyCars. Timing is superb for F1 as well, as IndyCar once again stuck it’s foot in it’s mouth by firing Randy Bernard, upsetting their entire fan base, who loved the man. My advise to F1 “Strike while the iron is hot”.

Its easy to get too down on how the race will fail in the US. However, to focus on the positives, F1 seems to have made a good attempt at the spectacle (although acknowledge your point about additional marketing). The track seems spectacular and the championship is close. Arguably the best thing that could happen is a tight race. I’d be a lot more negative if it was at another Tilke dome and the race is a runaway RB win.

I watch all racing. F1 is at the top of my list….but for a long time, because coverage in America of F1 was so poor in America, most of my early exposure to racing was with NASCAR. In fact, the first race I ever saw on TV was the February 18, 1979 Daytona 500 on CBS. I was only 7 at the time, but I do remember it and I became a Cale Yarborough fan after it. Then when my family got cable in the mid-80s, I got hooked on F1.

The problem with F1 is the time zones. If you Brits and Euros think a race in Abu Dhabi stinks because its too early, try getting up at 3am to watch it live. I still hate the fact that Bernie put so many races in Asia because at least the European time zone was manageable at 6-8am depending where it was. But oh well…I guess that’s what DVRs are for.

Living in the eastern time zone in North America I actually like the times for F1. The majority of races start at 8 am and are over by 10 am. With most of the races in the summer, who wants to be in front of a tv on a beautiful summer afternoon? (The summers are too short here in Montreal, so we have to take advantage of it while we can).

I’m not watching any races live anymore, as there’s way too many ads. Even the ones that are live on convenient times, I DVR. I start watching those about 40 minutes after the b-cast has started. That way I catch up with the live b-cast for the last few laps of the race and have been able to fast forward through all ads….

I always wondered what happened to those guys in F1. It seemed like the US drivers just couldn’t cut it in ‘the big leagues’. If there was some sort of conspiracy that would explain a lot. Does that kind of sabotage really happen within teams? Why would Bernie want US drivers to fail? Up or out may just be the way it is for all F1 drivers without big money. Joe knows the truth I’m sure… Hopefully he has time to comment before things get crazy in Austin.

BTW the US F1 fans I know are mostly racer/car-guy types or expats. Add in the sports junkies and you have your audience. Watching live in the pre-dawn hours tends to thin the herd. We could use a bunch of sponsors advertising all over the place ala Skyfall but I don’t expect much without a huge push by the next Bernie.

Re TV coverage in the US – nothing compares with BBC or Sky coverage. Is SPEED going to put Newey in his first drive in an F1 car? Ever? If you want to watch real coverage, find a way to watch BBC or Sky online from your country – it takes some looking but you can do it. NBC should just use the BBC feed anyway.

Does anyone know if the BBC is still doing races live for the rest of the world for races that are highlight shows in the UK? I think I saw a BBC live feed online once for a highlight only race but I could be mistaken…

Whether F1 wants to hear it or not, F1 is but a small blip on the U.S. Sports Scene. The first Austin GP may be well-attended, but so was the first GP at Indianapolis. Let’s wait two or three years and see where F1 stands here…

NASCAR is sanctioning the F1 weekend’s Ferrari Challenge races in Austin though its road-racing division, Grand-Am, in an era that dates back to the France family’s involvement in GT racing since 1962, with the Daytona Continental 3-hour race that is now the Rolex 24, and through IMSA’s heyday, when it was a joint effort of John Bishop and Bill France. The modern involvement the France family (son Jim in control) was NASCAR’s 2008 acquisition of the Grand American Road Racing Association. Grand-Am will race in March with a Rolex GT (with GT3 cars legal) before the 2014 merger.

No chance to watch the race live in Canada. SpeedTV is blacked out and TSN (owned by Bell Media) is broadcasting at 7pm EST. It happens every time, football and NASCAR take precedence here. Added to that, if you only subscribe to the standard TV package, you won’t get to watch the race as it’s on TSN2, the secondary channel.

I’m getting sick of the lack of options to watch the race. Time for Bernie to implement an online streaming subscription.

Not to mention the sport (FOM and the teams (individually or through FOTA)) have done very little to market the sport or the grand prix. No road shows (vettels tour around New Jersey doesn’t count), no drivers on the morning or evening talk shows, no national or regional media junkets. They should’ve mapped out a strategy a year ago and started building hype over a period of months (maybe since the Canadian GP).

Having two or more races will not help if the sport cannot implement (or even organize) an effective promotional campaign.

If there are any frustrated or wannabe standup insult comics among you, you’re needed at statesman.com, the Austin paper’s site. Read the F1 articles, then the reader comments, register and join the fray. Your rapier-like wit will get lots of cut-and-thrust practice, and you’ll be standing up for our sport.

It’s just a bad business decision to start the race at that time. Equally bad to go head to head with NASCAR on the finali of the NASCAR season. Why not look for constructive solutions and start the race an hour or hour and a half earlier? Why does F1 have to be run by such an arrogant and immoveable leadership? WHATS WRONG WITH THEM? Don’t they want to grow the sport in logical fashion? Or just sell races to the world’s dictatorships and questionable democracies?

Sod all coverage here in Canada, really. Nothing of Friday (yet there is often coverage of other races); Saturday 1 hour qualification; Sunday race. Pathetic really. You would think that BE would ensure decent coverage as part of the contract to host. I am crazy mad I can’t be in Austin and really hoped/thought the channels would cover it much better than this. NASCAR just sucks… Not proper racing at all and now they find it acceptable for an ex-champion to deliberately slow down to wait for a rival to lap him, then force him into the wall, taking out two other cars as well. And the guy he took out could have been a championship contender. Fine but no racing penalty! Ridiculous attitude of the organizing body. Wait till someone dies, then there will be much wringing of hands… I love F1…

F1 person : “F1 are the fastest cars on the planet”
Talk show: “Faster than Indycar?”
“Well no – they go around ovals – and over 230mph”
“Faster than Nascar?”
“Well no – they go around ovals and go over 210mph”
“Faster than drag racing”
“Well no – the go 330mph”
“So how fast do they go?
“198mph in a straight line”
“So they don’t even break 200mph????”
“Well – we’re faster than an ALMS car”
“I’ve never heard of that”

“Well we have “DRS” technology and KERS”
“Whats that- is it like ‘Push to pass’ in Indycar?”
“I suppose so”
“But we do race at night under lights”
“But not at Austin”
“No”
“And haven’t Indycar and Nascar done that for decades?”
“Well – yes”
“We have state of the art electronics”
“Nascar doesn’t need that – they don’t even have pit lane speed limiters”

John – that’s a great question, and I see how lacking the drivers have been on media tours. INDYCAR and NASCAR successfully place drivers on media tours, and both have bonus-money programmes for teams that require drivers to make appearances for circuits. One of the better known ones in the state was the NASCAR promotion at Fort Worth’s speedway where Jimmie Johnson had some ice hockey drill work with legend Mike Modano, complete with sweater (and there is an AHL ice hockey team in Austin, which is not locked out, that would love to have a driver or two to promote the race while at a Texas Stars game). The Red Bull promotions have influence in those types of promotions.

Imagine for example, at the Dallas-Houston MLS derby, an F1 driver or two is brought along for autographs and even a challenge. Drivers being on radio stations would make sense. Next year, with NBC, the drivers would almost have a ball being on Jay Leno’s show, along with promotions on CNBC and NBC Sports Network. I believe if they are smart and do a UK-based crew that travels trackside (James Allen lead, et al), they could have a CNBC segment for both the European and US Closing Bells with an F1 Report on Fridays (live US Closing Bell for the Americas), and be on NBCSN’s CNBC Sports Biz. Imagine drivers on a media tour of NBC’s Today, Golf’s Morning Drive (an NBC property, talking about their golf games), G4’s Attack of the Show (NBC property also, tech), Jay Leno, and other shows. Sponsors need to up the ante too. Verizon (which Vodafone owns 45% of its wireless division) stores could be a place for McLaren drivers to appear. Ferrari drivers are doing Shell promotions, but why not a Santander Consumer Finance office in Texas? Why not buy ads on NBC?

The bad thing about Lewis Hamilton to Mercedes is that we’ll lose the wonderful ads with NASCAR champion Tony Stewart. Could Jensen Button and “Smoke” do comedic ads? And why not a COTA appearance after the Canadian race with a NASCAR, INDYCAR, or Grand-Am driver? The Mobil promotion was fun for Tony as an F1 car raced down The Glen in full song!